This invention relates to guided missiles and fuzes therefor, and particularly to guided missile detonating arrangements having impact fuzes, composed of a delay fuse train and igniting charge, as well as proximity-type "overflight" fuzes.
The term "fuze" as used herein denotes an electrical or mechanical mechanism used to fire a missile at or near the target. The term "fuse" denotes a pyrotechnic conduit that leads fire from one place to another.
German Pat. No. 886,252 discloses guided missiles or projectiles for use against ships' targets, in which the missile approaches the target at a constant altitude above sea level. In this disclosure the flight altitude is chosen to be sufficiently low that the target ships are generally destroyed by direct horizontal impact (referred to in the German language as "Rammtreffer"). Modern weapons technology and data electronics make it possible to obtain great strategic value from an ever increasing number of small ships and ships with low superstructures. In order to destroy such ships with low flying missiles that score direct horizontal hits (i.e. by "Rammtreffer"), the constant altitude of the low flying guided missile has to be selected to be extremely low without the projectile touching waves in the water. When the sea is rough it may not be possible to accomplish a horizontal impact strike (i.e. "Rammtreffer") upon low-aspect target ships, despite low flight altitudes.
For these reasons such missiles are provided with additional built-in "overflight" or "passing-flight" proximity fuzes. Radar is used to produce missile-target distance information. This is described in German Auslegeschrift 2009 422. However, data evaluation and subsequent derivation of a detonating signal require substantial expenditure for electronic equipment.
Moreover, proposals have been made to calculate or derive an ignition signal for the overflight fuzing during the time the missile flies over the ship, from the step-like change or variation of the output signal in the altitude measuring device which helps hold the constant low missile altitude during the target approach. While such a solution is relatively simple, there remains the possibility, slight as it may be, of the overflight fuze being detonated erroneously. This is so, because the high velocity of the missile makes it extremely difficult for the altitude measuring device to distinguish between extremely steep or high mountainous waves on the one hand and the side of the ship on the other.
An object of the invention is to improve guided missiles.
Another object of the invention is to improve guided missile fuzing systems.
Another object of the invention is to provide an arrangement capable of detonating the warhead of a guided missile either by impact or overflight, while affording such arrangement a simple structure which operates with little trouble, is reliable, and if possible, can also be added to existing guided missiles.
The invention is pointed out specifically in the claims. The following features and aspects of the invention may be considered a summary of the invention.